Category Archives: Handsets

Yesterday I gave you an example of how well the Lumia 920 copes with the camera shake that comes from trying to film a landing aircraft from a moving car, and today its time raise the bar even further and film from inside an extremely challenging environment – a chopper. Not only does a helicopter promise a very bumpy ride, it is also incredibly loud inside. To make things even more interesting we also took a HTC 8X, an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy S3 along to see how they compare to the Lumia 920.

1. While filming both devices were held together at the same time to ensure that the camera shake was being felt equally.

2. The Lumia 920 easily beats the competition when it comes to making sure you have stable video in very shaky environments. The optical image stabilisations works, and is far from a gimmick.

2. In very loud environments it does a good job of eliminating noise and capturing human voice, although the volume can be low at times. Devices like the Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 also did a good job at capturing audio, despite not packing technology such as Nokia’s Rich Recording. However, both of them also captured a lot of noise in the background. The HTC 8X really struggled.

The Lumia 920 is easily the best smartphone in the market when it comes to video capture, a 1080p 30 frames a second video from a smartphone never looked so good. What do you think?

The Lumia 920 is first phone to pack optical image stabilisation, but what does it translate into in terms of real world usage? Simply put, the ability to whip the phone out of your pocket and take high quality shake free video that you would be proud to show off. Case in point is the video of an landing aircraft that I was able to capture.

The first part of the video is shot from a stationary car with the Lumia 920 panning around to follow the aircraft. It copes remarkably well with the handshake that comes from panning. However, things get even more interesting in the second part of the video where it is being filed from inside a moving car, so you can image the kind of hand shake that must have resulted in. But once again, the Lumia 920 handles the trying conditions with remarkable ease.

I will be following this post up with even more extensive tests, including comparisons with the Galaxy S3, iPhone 5 and the HTX 8X.

The big news from the Nokia India ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ event that happened today morning is that the Lumia 610 will finally go on sale in India for a ‘best buy’ price of Rs. 12,999. While this is the official Nokia price, I expect the Lumia 610 to retail for slightly less in the market. The 610 is Nokia’s first budget Windows Phone that packs a 3.7” LCD with a 800 x 480 resolution, an 800 Mhz processor, 256 MB of RAM, a 1300 mAh battery, support for 7.2 MBPS HSDPA, a 5 Megapixel Camera and will come in Cyan, Black, White and Magenta.

At close to the 12,000 INR price point it is a very compelling product, as most similarly priced Android devices come with poor processors and even worse 480×320 or 320×240 screens. Infact, its biggest competition comes from the Lumia 710, that is a speedier Windows Phone that retails for about 1.5-2,000 INR more. I have spent some time with the device at its MWC launch, and here are my initial impressions.

The only drawback of the Lumia 610 is that because of being slightly lower spec’d some applications do not run on the device. All of Nokia’s core apps like Maps, Music and the camera extras work just fine though. The Lumia 710 has none of those limitations, but if you’re forced to stick to a budget, the 610 is a very good looking phone.

The Nokia 808 PureView recently started shipping in various countries around the world including India, and this is what the retail India unit looks like. The devices comes with a 12 month subscription to DRM-free music from the Nokia Music Store that gives you access to over 40 lakh songs, I’m a huge fan of this service, and coupled with the FM-transmitter in the PureView 808, its a real breeze to use.

I will not go over the basic specifications of the device again, as I’ve previewed it extensively in the past. What I’m looking forward to is Nokia’s rich recording technology for videos that lets you capture excellent sound. Plus, this is the first smartphone that can actually let you get lossless zoom during HD video recording. Not only that the 808 uses the full frame of the camera to give you a nice wide angle even when you are shooting in 1080p.

Another aspect that Nokia really has going for the 808 is that the apps on the Nokia Store are incredibly cheap. You can buy high quality apps like Gravity and Joikuspot for as little as Rs. 35 and most other apps are just Rs. 5. This coupled with operator billing makes purchases really seamless. All in all you get the feeling that by buying a 808 PureView you’re not only getting unlimited DRM free music and worldwide navigation, but also a ton of apps for free.

At the official launch of the PureView 808 in India, I spent some time with the retail unit of the PureView 808 and filmed a demo looking at some camera specific apps like ColorizIT and Silent Film Director that Nokia is bundling with the phone, and the Camera Lover Pack that will be a free download from the Nokia Store.

The PureView 808 is already on sale across in India, Nokia’s online store lists it at Rs. 33,899 but if you walk up to your local Nokia Store, you should be able to get it for about or a little less that 33,000 INR.

Since this video demo has been shot on a PureView 808, you should get an idea of its video capture abilities as well. The video was shot in a large hall which had a lot of background noise, and I wasn’t sure how clearly would you be able to hear me in the video. However, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality with which the 808 was able to capture sound. A lot of phones can do 1080p video, but no one does it with the full frame and with audio capture that comes to the PureView.

I also take a quick look at the camera specific apps that Nokia will be pre-loading or offering for free via the Nokia Store.

ColorizIT lets you take a photo and strip away the colours, and then selectively add colour to one portion of the image, if done right, it lets you create some excellent pictures.

Here’s an example.

Next is an app that will be available as a free download from the Nokia Store, Camera Lover Pack. It features the ability to take panoramas, and use some other funky camera effects.

The last is Silent Film Director, it lets you add filters in real time while shooting video. So you can make the video look like a ’70 movies, a ’20’s film, a black and white clip and so on. You can even increase the speed on the clip, and add some background music. A pretty fun app, and the best part is that it can work with 720p video.

Its been a long time coming, but the 41 megapixel touting super cameraphone from Nokia is finally on sale across India. The device is arriving at Nokia Priority Stores in the country today, and you should also be able to get yours from Nokia’s online store. As always the price across the country will slightly vary depending on which Nokia Priority Store you go to, but the figure I’m being quoted is closer to the Rs. 33,000 mark.

You can place your order at Nokia’s official store for Rs. 33,899, while the MRP of the device seems to be Rs, 34,999. The device is listed as out of stock right now, but that should change very soon. The official India launch of the 808 PureView happened today in Delhi, and I will bring you more from it in a few hours.

The 808 PureView lets you take absolutely incredible photos, with the ability to zoom in without losing quality. You can choose to shoot in full resolution (38 Megapixels in 4:3 mode and 34 Megapixels in the 16:9 mode) and the 5 Megapixel automatic mode, where the photos are oversampled to render fine detail. The PureView 808 takes really excellent video as well.